Food Budget Too High? 13 Helpful Tips When Budgeting for Food
Updated November 21, 2023
As the second or third largest monthly expense, your food budget is something you have lots of control over. Correctly budgeting for food is almost always the easiest and most effective way to reduce your cost of living.
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After paying for housing, the money you spend on food each month will be the second or third largest expense in your monthly budget.
Your highest costs, housing and transportation, are fixed. You can’t change them easily. However, your food budget is something you have lots of control over. Budgeting for food is almost always the easiest and most effective way to reduce your monthly cost of living.
If you’re so far in debt, though, that you’re not sure changing your food budget is going to make much of a difference, feel free to reach out to us. We’ve helped numerous Canadians substantially reduce the monthly debt they owe, oftentimes at little to no cost to them.
So, ready to get to it? Here’s our list of 13 ways to lower your monthly food budget.
#1 Make More of Your Own Meals
Let’s start with the obvious: eating at home is the number one way to reduce your food budget! We estimate that every meal eaten outside the home is, on average, $15 more expensive than a meal eaten at home.
If you’re a family of 4 and you eat out once a week, cutting back to eating out once a month will save nearly $250 from your monthly budget. Imagine what else you could do with that money! Now that you’re in your kitchen, what else can you do to save money?
#2 Meal Planning
Good meal planning is an essential starting point to reduce your food budget. Meal planning sounds intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be.
“The meal plan makes sure you’re only buying what you need”
Meal planning to reduce your food budget will depend on factors such as:
- How many people are there in your family?
- Do any of them have special dietary needs?
- How close are you to where you usually shop?
- Do you have a deep freeze?
- What’s already in your pantry or freezer that might be close to expiring?
Adapt your plan to the above factors, but generally, you should be looking to plan a week at a time when planning and budgeting for food. The meal plan gives you guidance for your trips to the grocery store, so you’re only buying what you need. Often, it helps to have a rotation of meals your family enjoys, and this rotation becomes the basis for your weekly plan.
For example, when meal planning and budgeting for food, you can have:
- Meatless Mondays,
- taco Tuesdays,
- fish on Fridays, and then
- roast something on Saturday or Sunday.
Make a point of regularly using the items in your freezer or pantry, so you don’t throw them out.
There are great apps available to assist with meal planning and budgeting for food. Do a Google search on meal planning apps and experiment with different approaches until you find what works best for you. Regardless of your approach, effective meal planning will guarantee you’ll reduce your food budget.
#3 Plan Your Trips To The Grocery Store
This budgeting for food tip follows naturally from your meal planning. Whether you’re using an online app or making an old-fashioned grocery list, having a list helps you focus on what you need.
“More trips to the store generally mean more dollars spent.”
In most circumstances, limit your trips to the grocery store to one per week. Why? More trips to the store generally mean a higher food budget, often because of impulse purchases while you’re there.
The exception to this general rule will be if you live within walking distance of a store or have limited fridge or freezer storage. Planning your trips to the store will allow you to make the best use of what you already have on hand and avoid impulse purchases.
#4 Meat Reduction and Substitution
Meat and seafood purchases are usually the most expensive items in your food budget. If you don’t already do this, make at least one meal a week meatless. You don’t have to become a vegan, but there are also significant health benefits to reducing meat consumption, in addition to minimizing your food budget.
“Meat and seafood purchases are usually the most expensive items on your grocery list”
Beans and other pulse crops, such as lentils, are a great protein source and can be turned into some delicious and healthy dishes. Ideally, buy these items dry—they are super cheap that way. Beans and chickpeas will need to be soaked overnight, so they take a bit of planning—this is where your meal plan helps you stay organized.
When budgeting for food, find ways to extend the meat you buy. With ground meats, add grain products such as oats, flax, or bread crumbs to burgers or skillet dishes. Chop meat into smaller portions, such as you might do with a stroganoff or a stir fry, to provide the feeling of eating meat while consuming less of it.
Other excellent protein sources include:
- Nuts,
- seeds,
- dairy,
- grains,
- green vegetables, and
- eggs.
Many of these protein sources are less expensive than meat and can be combined in almost limitless ways to make tasty, nutritious, and inexpensive meals. Experiment with these until you find combinations that your family enjoys, and then work them into your regular meal rotation.
#5 Buy the Whole Bird
Not interested in reducing your meat intake to lower your food budget? Not a problem! Just change to whole cuts of meat when budgeting for food.
“Boneless and skinless chicken breast is way more expensive per pound than whole chicken”
When planning your meals, try to come up with a few different meals that will use the whole chicken. This will significantly reduce your food budget instead of buying each piece of the chicken already cut up for you. Breaking down a whole chicken is fast, easy, and very cost-effective.
Remove the skin and bones from the chicken breast for your pastas and salads. Keep the backbone, wing tips, and scraps to make stock for soups or ramen. Then, you’ll have the legs and thighs for grilling, frying, or roasting. Don’t forget to freeze all of those chicken wings for wing night!
#6 Choose Different Cuts of Meat
Again, when budgeting for food, you don’t have to go vegan to save money on meat. Just do what the pros do: buy less expensive, more flavorful cuts of meat.
“Chefs will rarely choose a filet minion when cooking for their family”
Chefs spend their entire careers budgeting for food. And the vast majority of them aren’t buying overpriced, individually cut filet minions when they’re cooking at home. Or any other premium cut of steak, for that matter.
Instead of going for the well-known, expensive cuts of steaks, shop like a pro. A flat iron steak is usually large enough to feed 3-4 people. They’re nearly as tender as a filet minion at about half the price per pound. And they’re so much easier to cook!
Other cuts of meat chefs buy to reduce their food budget are:
- Beef Short Ribs
- Flank Steaks
- Skirt Steaks
- Tri-Tips
- Chuck Eye Steaks
Meat is the biggest expense when budgeting for food. Choosing better and more flavorful, yet less expensive cuts, will significantly reduce your food budget.
#7 Shop for Sale Items and Stock Up
You might want to consider investing in some storage space if you don’t have it right now—a deep freeze can knock hundreds of dollars off of your annual food budget if used correctly, as well as make meal planning more comfortable and more convenient.
“Don’t buy items you may not use just because they are on sale—they probably will be thrown out”
One of the best examples of stocking up on sale items is turkeys—they always go on sale in the weeks before major holidays. Buy two or three of them if you can, as they are an incredibly affordable and flexible source of protein. You don’t have to wait for those holiday seasons either—work turkey into your meal planning at any time of the year to reduce your food budget.
Look for discounted items in the grocery stores. While some discounted fruits and vegetables may not be usable, many will be if they are used right away or frozen for later use, even in baking. Meat can also be discounted as much as 30%. Buy it and use it immediately, or freeze it. When budgeting for food, check flyers for savings as you’re doing your meal planning, and focus on purchasing sale items when it makes sense.
#8 Use Coupons
No need to spend hours a week scouring the paper for coupons. Even families that spend as little as 10 minutes a week looking for coupons can reduce their annual food budget by as much as $1400.
“Extreme couponers can reduce their food budget by up to 90%!”
And, with the onset of free couponing apps for your phone, budgeting for food has never been easier. Simply download a couple of these apps, type in some of the ingredients from your shopping list, and adjust your list a little based on the coupons you find.
A quick note on using coupons to lower your food budget: just because there’s a coupon for it doesn’t mean you need to buy it. Make a list, and follow it as closely as you can. If one of the items on that list has a coupon available, then use it.
#9 Make Larger Meals And Eat Leftovers
This practice can assist with your meal planning and reducing your food budget. Make larger batches of food and then freeze them in portions for easy and convenient use later. If you have a decent stockpile of pre-made frozen dinners on hand, making meals on those nights when you’re short on time gets much easier and provides a simple alternative to eating out or ordering in.
“Making meals on those nights when you’re short for time gets much easier and provides a simple alternative to eating out or ordering in”
Depending on your family’s size, roast chicken can often be stretched into 3 or 4 meals. You have the chicken on the day of the roast and have the leftovers for a second meal.
Use a stockpot or slow cooker to turn the carcass and a few vegetables into a delicious broth that can be used for soups or as a base for sauces. You’ll eliminate buying stock from your food budget and gain the health benefit of controlling the ingredients that are going into the stock.
Chilis, stews, chowders, and soups are great candidates for making large batches of food. Label and date what you’re making—sometimes the boxes in the freezer start to look alike, and you won’t be sure what you have there or how old it is.
#10 Reduce The Amount Of Food Thrown Out In Your Household
Studies in the US indicate that Americans waste 30%-40% of their food. Maybe we do better in Canada but, even at 25% waste, that could be $2,400 saved per year on your food budget! Even the most frugal households throw out nearly 10% of their food purchases.
“Even the most frugal households throw out nearly 10% of their food purchases.”
When budgeting for food, make a list of the items that you most often end up throwing out. Usually, it’s fresh produce going to waste. When you realize that’s happening, make a point of moving the oldest produce to the front of your fridge so that it’s ‘top of mind’ when you look in the refrigerator.
Take the same approach to items in your freezer. Periodically move the oldest items to the front of the freezer so you pay attention to using them up before they become freezer-burned.
#11 Buy Items In Bulk
You are almost always paying for pre-packaging of foods, and sometimes it’s costly. One of the best examples of this is spices. They are usually much cheaper when purchased in bulk.
“dry goods can be good candidates to buy in bulk, which is usually much cheaper”
Other dry goods can be good candidates to buy in bulk:
- Rice
- Pasta
- Baking Supplies
- Dry Beans
- Canned Goods
- Shelf Stable Beverages
- Toiletries, and
- Household Cleaning Supplies
Be careful that you’re making purchases of items that you are sure to use. When budgeting for food, compare the cost per unit or unit weight, so you know you are getting a good deal on the item.
#12 Buy Produce In Season Or Frozen
Buy berries and tree fruits such as peaches and nectarines in the summer when they are readily available, and buy root vegetables in the fall and winter. Especially for the fruits and vegetables that are typically only fresh in the summer, consider buying them in bulk when they are cheapest and canning or freezing them for later.
“Sometimes frozen produce can even be more nutritious as it’s picked and frozen at the peak of its nutritional value”
For some fruits and vegetables, it may make sense to buy them frozen. If you use avocados in a smoothie, for example, you usually need only a few chunks for the smoothie, and storing the rest of it fresh often doesn’t work out so well. To reduce your food budget, consider freezing the balance of the avocado or just buying a frozen package you can dip into for your smoothies.
Berries can be another example of this—they can increase your food budget when purchased fresh but reasonably priced when frozen. Sometimes, frozen produce can even be more nutritious as it’s picked and frozen at the peak of its nutritional value and not picked days or weeks before showing up on a grocery store shelf.
#13 Make Your Coffee At Home
Buying coffee at the drive-thru, or worse, buying it at an expensive coffee shop, is guaranteed to increase your food budget. If your coffee at the drive-thru costs the better part of $2.00, and you buy one coffee a day while you’re working and work 20 days a month, that’s $40 a month and nearly $500 a year. By comparison, you can make the same cup of coffee at home for pennies each day.
Buying a travel mug will pay for itself in the short term and save you money in the long term!
Is Your Food Budget Still Too Tight?
By using a combination of these 13 tips for budgeting for food, you can reduce the amount of money you spend every month at the grocery. Still, for Canadians who are hurting financially, creating a food budget still may not allow them to save enough to pay their monthly bills.
If this is the situation you find yourself in, please feel free to reach out. We’ve helped numerous Canadians reduce their overall monthly debt load, giving them much-needed breathing room when it comes to buying the necessities in life.